The Data Lab, Scotland’s new Data Science innovation centre, has opened for business - new researxh suggests that big data will yield £216 billion of potential business benefits in the UK.
The Lab will play a key role in helping companies take advantage of the business growth opportunities from better use of data.
Research conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research identified approximately £216 billion of potential business benefits in the UK, over a five year period, through the effective use of data. The potential benefit to Scottish companies is assessed at £17 billion by consultants Optimat.
Formally launching the Data Lab Finance Secretary John Swinney said:
“This new innovation centre will transform the nature of collaboration between industry, public sector and academic partners providing new ways for business to benefit from the expertise within Scotland’s world-leading university sector.
“Research has identified approximately £17 billion of business benefits to the thousands of companies in Scotland, the majority of them SMEs, who provide our best opportunity for economic growth.”
Neil Logan, Chairman of The Data Lab and Chief Technology Officer at Lockheed Martin BTS, said:
“The Data Lab aims to unlock the value of our world-leading academic institutions and release the potential of our commercial sector in domestic and international markets. Along these lines, it’s immensely encouraging that we are at day one and we’re already funding real projects with real money. We look forward to funding many more and to establishing Scotland’s place at the head of data science development.”
Laurence Ward, Chair of the Technology Advisory Group said that companies using advanced data analytics are twice as likely to be sector leaders and are likely to make decisions five times faster than their competitors, providing real-time competitive advantage.
One Scottish company already making effective use of data is SoilEssentials, a small precision agriculture business based near Brechin. It is drawing on many sources of data to optimise agricultural production. For example, it pulls on satellite imagery, historical yield data, data from soil sensors and GPS and Ordinance Survey data to monitor yield, crop disease, as well as efficiently controlling seed, fertilizer and pesticide delivery to centimetre accuracy. The use of the technology greatly reduces the use of fuel, pesticides and fertilisers while increasing crop yield and also provides significant CO2 savings.
With Hub locations in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, The Data Lab’s primary focus will be on the digital technology, energy & utilities, financial services, healthcare and public services sectors. http://www.thedatalab.com/